Apr 26, 2023
On Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s 75th independence day, award-winning author and journalist Yossi Klein Halevi will discuss the “state of the state” and the struggle over the nation’s identity and whether it can fulfill the aspirations of its founders to be both a homeland for the Jewish people and a liberal democracy.
The struggle over the judicial system that has brought hundreds of thousands of Israelis into the streets in the last few months is an expression of an even deeper schism. Israel defines itself as a “Jewish and democratic” state, but there is no consensus over what those terms mean in practice. This lecture will explore Israel’s deepest ideological divide and how the nation might begin to heal.
Organized by the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies and co-sponsored by the Shalom Hartman Institute, the UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies, American Jewish University, and Hillel at UCLA.
